


Manifest

by jouissant



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Impotence, M/M, Object Insertion, Porn Logic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:14:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22435480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jouissant/pseuds/jouissant
Summary: James helps Francis with a minor problem.
Relationships: Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames
Comments: 26
Kudos: 154
Collections: The Terror Bingo (2019)





	Manifest

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently there is a Due South fic with a similar premise, so all credit and blame to that writer and to what-alchemy for making me go, "holy shit but what if Victorians." Thanks to what-alchemy for the beta. For my Terror Bingo "teamwork" square, lol.

Le Vesconte appears unannounced in the doorway of the great cabin. Bridgens is elsewhere; he is often elsewhere these days, since the Terrors came to _Erebus_. Since most of them came, anyway.

“Come,” says James to his knock, more a joke than anything, since he is looking at Le Vesconte when he says it. Le Vesconte was looking at him when he knocked. He, like James, still manages to keep himself together, even as he, like James, is drawn tighter over his frame. James cannot look at him without catching a glimpse of him in full flower. His memories of their time on _Clio_ refuse to release him. He is unsure whether or not to wish they would.

“ _Terror_ signals,” Le Vesconte says.

“And says what?”

“Only that your presence is requested. Your presence alone.” Le Vesconte cocks an eyebrow.

James sets his quill aside. He is in the middle of an accounting. Weights and measures: what may fit in a boat, how many boats they have. How to mete out poundage, mete out what of a man’s life he may take with him when the time comes. Flags from _Terror_ are, he must admit, a welcome distraction. 

“Shall I accompany you anyway? Crozier might be planning an ambush.”

“I think not. Francis has been defanged,” James says.

He rubs at his eyes. Odd that he should have to remind Le Vesconte of this, so soon after Carnivale, from the ashes of which his esteem for Francis has lately risen anew. Perhaps it has been difficult for him to reconcile, given James’s years of brewing vitriol. James supposes he cannot blame him.

“Where’s your steward? Shall I fetch your slops?”

“You need not attend me, Dundy. I am capable of dressing and crossing to _Terror_ under my own power.”

“True enough,” says Le Vesconte. He steps fully into the room then, shuts the door behind him. He comes carefully to James, mincing across the tilting cabin as on a sea-tossed deck. “Only you haven’t come to visit me in some time,” he says. “Forgive me, Fitz, if I’m a bit hard up.”

James huffs a nervous laugh. “You know I have not been myself of late.”

“That is also true,” Le Vesconte says. “As I see it, all the more reason to indulge.”

He watches James’s face, seeming to be disappointed by something he sees there, or by something he does not see. James stands, stepping backward as he does to get some space between them. He pats Le Vesconte on the shoulder as though to make up for it.

They’d agreed that while their ranks were disparate James would only ever go to him, so that, were they caught, their assignation might be construed as an abuse of power. Thus, he’d hoped, Le Vesconte would be spared the worst of any eventual punishment. James wonders if he made the rule out of some innate tendency towards self-sabotage, as though certain that were he to be brought low in the Navy it would be down to this most personal of failings, a flaw in his character as inborn as his illegitimacy, yet somehow not half so shameful.

James smiles at Le Vesconte. “Perhaps we’ll resume the arrangement in happier times, old man.”

He retrieves his slops and retreats to his berth, more to end the conversation than to seek out privacy, for he will pull on the bulky garments over his uniform. Le Vesconte has the good sense not to follow, and James waits until he hears the man’s footsteps fade towards the corridor before he emerges from his berth and leaves _Erebus_ altogether.

All things considered, James does not mind the walk. He would like it better were he not carrying his rifle, poised for any sign of the creature, and were he not probing a tender spot on his palate with his tongue, which lately feels strangely raw, as though he has been eating too much salt pork. He spits copper onto the snow. _Damnable lemon,_ he thinks. _Sucked it down all these years. How long has that been futile?_ They’d half known, too, but they’d carried blithely on, doing nothing, if indeed there was anything to be done. He shakes his head. He cannot dwell. For now, it is easy enough to attribute these minor hurts to coincidence, and he will not always be able to consider his eventual demise with such sanguinity. In weaker moments to come, he will need the solace of coincidence to draw over him like a cloak.

On _Terror_ he is greeted without fanfare. He finds he cannot meet the men’s eyes, or perhaps it is they who turn from him. If so, he can blame them no more than he could Le Vesconte for his befuddlement over James’s mutability regarding Francis. It was James, after all, who had led some of them so merrily to death, who may have ushered death nearer still for those who had survived him. In truth, this is why he cannot go to Le Vesconte, though even before Carnivale he had not sought his friend out in many months. James deserves no pleasure, no ease. Not while all their fates are so precarious. And lately he doubts he could rise to meet any such occasion, though whether his cock or his roiling thoughts would be more to blame James does not know.

Down in the guts of the ship, Francis is nowhere to be found. The door to his cabin is closed but unlocked, the door to his berth closed likewise, guarded by a reticent Jopson. When he sets eyes on James, Jopson steps more directly in front of the door, and folds his arms across his chest. A clear signal as to where he feels his duty lies, and James is at once very tired, as though he has covered the half mile between the ships at a dead sprint.

“Where is Captain Crozier?”James asks.

Jopson swallows. James notes his pallor, and the tremulousness with which he tucks his hair behind his ear.

James crosses the room to him. Behind the door of the berth there is no sound, nothing to assist James in discerning what manner of incident lies within. “Jopson, what has happened?”

“Sir--”

Right away, James’s morbid brain alights on the worst possibility imaginable. “My God, Jopson, has he—has he taken up the bottle again?”

Jopson’s eyes widen, and he fairly glares at James. “Goodness no, sir. Nothing like that.”

“What, then?”

“I cannot say, sir.”

“You cannot say?”

“No, sir.”

James sighs and looks heavenward. “Cannot, or will not, Jopson?”

Jopson glances back at the door. James is sure it is the latter, though why Jopson is being so blasted cagey is beyond him. They have both seen Francis at his worst, which James thinks privately was not in fact the insensate, incontinent creature Jopson tended but the man who came before.

“Mr. Jopson, you will speak up at once, and tell me what has Francis in such a state that he must summon me from _Erebus_ , where I am in the midst of preparations that may alternately save or damn the expedition entire.”

Perhaps a shade too familiar for Francis’s steward, James thinks belatedly, but surely Jopson is as well-appraised of their plans for departure as Bridgens is. At any rate, he appears unmoved to be shouted at. It follows, thinks James with chagrin. Perhaps he has grown used to it.

“Very well, sir,” says Jopson. “I—the captain has need of your assistance with—” Jopson turns a rather brilliant shade of red. And this in itself is disturbing to James, for he can think of little to make a steward blush, particularly one so steady as Jopson.

“Christ, Thomas,” calls Francis then, from within the berth. “Coyness will get us nowhere. Stand aside and let Captain Fitzjames in.” He sounds beleaguered, though James notes with relief that he does not seem nearly so diminished as he had during his illness and recovery.

“Francis?” James calls, driven by some strange need to confirm his identity. He fears somehow that he will open the door to find Francis changed, morphed into a great bird or beast. There is little else he can imagine that would cause Jopson to quail so.

“Come,” Francis says.

Jopson steps out of James’s way. He opens the door to the berth slightly, though he markedly does not look inside. When James has gone past him into the room he shuts the door again. James will not be shocked to find him on the other side when he leaves. Truly, the man’s loyalty is remarkable. James finds he understands it. Like Jopson, he long ago discerned some intrinsic quality in Francis, something that marked the man as worth following. It was only that Francis had seemed so determined to prove James wrong. Unlike Jopson, James had very nearly allowed him to do so.

Francis reclines somewhat awkwardly on his berth, posed as though he is a lady riding sidesaddle. He wears his shirt and waistcoat, and indeed has shrugged his jacket onto one shoulder, but his lower half is obscured beneath wadded blankets. His color is high, face as flushed as Jopson’s, though more patchy. He looks feverish, though the room is cold, and though he invited James inside, invited him onto the ship in the first place, James can see that Francis is fighting tooth and nail the urge to throw him out.

“What is the matter with you?” James says, shedding his slops and greatcoat. “Are you ill?”

Francis coughs. “Not ill,” he says. “And not drunk, either, James. I’d have hoped you held my force of will in higher estimation.”

“I only asked. Whatever has happened, it has Jopson in a state. And begs the question, Francis, as to why you would not rather involve your steward in resolution of a—a personal matter.”

Francis twists a length of sheet. “That is the trouble. It is too personal.”

“Then why involve anyone at all? And what, pray, is too personal for a steward? Dear Bridgens has seen me through thick and thin, as I know Jopson has you.” Lately Bridgens has been much preoccupied with the most efficient removal of bloodstains. James regularly awakens to find his pillow speckled with red, and cannot comb his hair without encountering some oozing spot. Bridgens has said nothing, only commented on his dissatisfaction with the anemic light available at their northerly latitude. _Linens could do with a good strong bleaching, sir, beneath a powerful sun._

“It is a matter of dignity,” says Francis weakly. “Of authority. I must lead these men, James. I may lead them seemingly unto their deaths, and they will have to trust me to allow it.” He looks at his hands, which are still busy with the sheet, as though they belong to someone else. “They came far too close to discarding all respect for me already. I have clawed it back these last weeks, and I will not lose it again over some idiotic experiment, undertaken in a moment of—of pathetic weakness. I trust Jopson without question, but I could not expect a man of lesser rank to carry this albatross.”

“Albatross? My God, Francis, have you murdered someone? Mean you to draw me into some conspiracy? I am quite busy. I am not certain I have the time.”

“Don’t make light,” Francis snaps.

“I don’t even know what’s happened. If you tell me, I shall be able to make light in a more precise and therefore much more humorous manner.”

Francis only growls in reply. But he beckons James nearer as he does so, rising from the bed with the sheet clasped around his waist. Francis sighs and shudders. On his face is a look of resignation undercut with disgust, as though he would rather be anywhere and with anyone else. James feels sorry to see it. They are not old friends, Francis and he. Their friendship is perhaps the newest, tenderest thing on these two ships, and under such circumstances there is little so potentially poisonous as embarrassment.

“Damn it to hell,” says Francis. “Fine.” 

As though spreading a cape, he opens the sheet to reveal his naked backside, confronting James immediately with a plane of raw pink skin, with muscle that shifts beneath it as Francis moves.

“What are you--” James starts, but his words die away as Francis raises a leg to set his foot on the berth. He drops the sheet entirely, with no small amount of drama. When he does, James spies an object glistening in the cleft of Francis’s arse. James cannot make out what it is, and moves closer to Francis to peer at it. He feels as though he is moving through a dream. He ought to protest, to leave the berth altogether, to run directly back to _Erebus_ in order to preserve the dregs of both their dignity. But he does not. 

“What _is_ that?” James asks.

Francis huffs, as though they are in the wardroom and he is schooling James on some point of technicality. “What does it look like? A glass drawer knob.”

“Good Lord,” James says. “Francis, what have you done?”

“Gotten it bloody well stuck, haven’t I, James.”

Francis groans. Originally he must have been compelled by some pleasurable impulse, but there is no pleasure whatsoever in that sound. James feels sure that if given the opportunity to drop stone dead at this very moment, Francis would gladly take it.

Under the circumstances, James ought to be sympathetic. And he is, truly, but he is also human, and rather an idiot. He begins to laugh. Quietly at first, and concealed by the fact he is not eye-to-eye with Francis, but James finds that once he starts he cannot stop. He cannot recall the last time he laughed, truly laughed. He has forgotten the looseness of it, the way it seems to live in his knees and elbows and belly, threatening the joins of him. His body seizes upon it like a starving man to rations and will not be persuaded to give it up, however dire the consequences. He tries and tries to swallow it, repression nearly painful. When he fails and his shout of laughter rings out at full volume, all subtlety abandoned, James feels almost as though he has climaxed, such is the joy of it, and such is his momentary love for Francis for giving it to him, even as he turns to look on James with an expression of such mutinous fury that James ought to be pissing himself in fear.

“How dare you?” hisses Francis.

James can only sniff and wipe at his eyes. “Oh, Francis. I am—I am sorry.”

Francis deflates, and eases himself onto the berth again. Now James can see the discomfort in his expression, and feels a pang despite his amusement.

“Oh, are you? How kind.”

“Surely you must also see the absurdity.”

“My own apologies, James, for failing to find it quite so damned funny.”

“You spoke of rank,” James says, still trembling with laughter. “Do you mean to say that were Sir John still with us you should seek his sage counsel in my place?”

“God, no. Faced with Sir John I would never have had the stones to give up drink in the first place. Would’ve saved us both the trouble.”

“How do you mean?”

“Have you never been deep in your cups, and attempted some romantic assignation?”

“Ah. Indeed.” 

“I found myself thus diverted much of the time. Freed from drink it would seem my constitution is recovering. I had little appetite for anything but whiskey for a very long time. I am hungry, James, in a way I have not been in years. For all manner of things.”

“Rather a terrible irony, that.”

James sits beside Francis, raising a hand to pat him on the shoulder. Francis tenses but allows it, relaxing into James’s touch in a way James finds immensely gratifying. James has calmed somewhat from his outburst, but he still feels lighter than he has in a very long time. Were Francis planning to throw him out, he would have done so already. What is more, he has brought James into his confidence. James finds the intimacy dizzying.

“In the interest of mutual disclosure I shall tell you of my own indignity,” James says. He feels the blood rising to his face.

“James, you needn’t—”

“No, no, Francis, ’tis only fair. Equal rank, and all that. I myself have been—diverted, though by not by so readily identified a source. For some months, in fact. Not that the opportunity has presented itself—”

“But even so,” says Francis, his tone more gentle than James can yet recall hearing. “One likes to feel one has the option.”

“Quite right.”

James is lying, of course; the opportunity has been readily available. He also has far greater bodily indignities to share, but he cannot bring himself to disclose these to Francis. He could not bear for Francis to feel sorry for him any more than he already does for James’s more expedition-relevant failings.

“There remains the matter of removal,” James says by way of changing the subject.   
“Can’t you simply pull—well, no, I suppose you’d have tried.” He drums his fingertips against the mattress in contemplation.

“I suppose so,” says Francis, glaring. “Haven’t you any better ideas?”

“What experience did you imagine I have with such matters?”

“I—I did not mean—” Francis grimaces, afraid perhaps that James has taken offense and means to leave him. “That is to say—”

“Peace,” James sighs. “I’m making fun.” He squeezes Francis’s shoulder again. “I have a thought. I fear you may dislike it.”

“I avail myself of your expertise.”

“This may be easier if your blood is up.”

Francis groans again, and puts his head in his hands.

“Only a suspicion,” James says. “I grant it may not even be possible in my presence, but if you were to be more relaxed—”

“Relaxed!”

“How long have you been thus afflicted, Francis?”

Francis’s silence is answer enough.

James runs a hand back through his hair. He catches himself halfway and winces, slides his hand out again, but if he has drawn forth his own blood Francis either does not notice or does not let on. “Let me try,” he says. “Lie down, will you? On your back, if you please, and bend your knees.”

Francis grumbles, but complies. He slips his jacket off, undoes the buttons on his waistcoat. When he is clad only in his undershirt and lying supine, James settles at his feet and runs his hand experimentally along the outside of Francis’s thigh. Here he can see the glassy end of the knob where it protrudes from Francis’s body, and he imagines with an odd thrill how he must have lain here and touched himself, worked himself into a lather after months, years of disassociation from his body. A fine body, too, James rather thinks. Solid, barrel-chested, calloused: the sort of man who has never had a qualm for heavy work, even as an officer.

“I expect this will be hard for you,” Francis says, looking at the ceiling.

“How so?”

“Oh, you know.”

Francis waves a hand at himself. The hairs stand up on the nape of James’s neck, for there is something so familiar in the gesture, in the easy self-deprecation. As a boy James had always been the first to call attention to some failing, to take a pratfall. Always safer, he’d thought, to slice a little off and throw it to them first. If you are lucky, they never even think about what else might be there for the taking.

James does not address the offending object directly, not at first. Instead he acquaints himself with the intricacies of Francis’s hips, his thighs. Francis holds tension in these muscles in great ropes, and James expects this applies universally. He wonders if Francis truly called on him to preserve the sanctity of his command, or if there were some inkling, some rumor that suggested James might be sympathetic to certain proclivities. He is very sympathetic. All the more so to look at Francis’s cock, which lies against one thigh, thick as the rest of him even in repose.

James swallows. His mouth is very dry, his tongue swollen. At once he finds it difficult to speak. “I—I’d like you to enjoy yourself,” he says. “Tell me how.”

He expects some manner of acid from Francis in reply, but it does not arrive. Instead his whole body seems to frown in uncertainty, and he shrugs his shoulders at the other end of the berth. “Do what you will,” he says, as though James has consigned him to torture. 

In answer, James kisses Francis on the knee. He does not think it inapt to call himself a considerate lover; at least he has had no significant complaints and many compliments, most recently from Le Vesconte. But he suspects he has not ever faced so difficult an audience as Francis Crozier in dire straits. So he does what he will, but he pays particular attention to Francis, to the hitch of his breath and the status of his cock, which seems to take well to light strokes of the fingers over his skin, over his belly with its pale flossing of hair, and to the brush of James’s mouth along the curve of his thigh, following it down. He waits until Francis’s cock begins to fill before he ventures between his legs in earnest, fiddling with the end of the knob.

“What on earth possessed you?” he murmurs. “Surely there was a more suitable object.”

“I don’t know from _suitable_ ,” sneers Francis, yet the sting is softened somewhat by the caliber of his erection, which now stands full and proud.

James rolls his eyes. “Something with a damned handle, for a start, not a glass bulb you found rattling about in a drawer of bits and bobs. Is this even long enough to—” He taps on the end of the knob, shuttles it gently forward. Francis arches off the bed with a hiss.

“Ah,” says James. “Perhaps not so poorly chosen after all.”

“Goddamn you,” Francis says, and James laughs.

He ducks his head and bites at the heavy flesh of Francis’s thigh, noses alongside the knob, sets his mouth over it and sucks. Francis clenches at it still, but James can feel him slackening as his pleasure distracts him. From above James hears him grumble some cursory protest at James’s forwardness, at the intrusion, but does not move. He told James to do as he would, and he would do this. Loves to do this, in fact.

The better part of lovemaking is enthusiasm. If Francis thinks it any hardship at all for James to be enthusiastic, he is very much mistaken. If anything has intruded on Francis it is this hard cruel object lodged within him, not James’s softer ministrations. He laps at Francis like a cat, until he is quite messy, until his cock bobs at ninety degrees and James can slide his tongue in alongside the end of the drawer knob, running it over smooth cut glass and threaded metal. He is satisfied he could remove it, but now they are underway James would see this assignation through to its natural conclusion, one-sided though it will be. His own cock is unresponsive, though the rest of him has warmed, and he retreats momentarily to kiss Francis lazily on the belly as he fumbles with his clothing, tosses his jacket aside until he is down to his waistcoat and jumper, long sleeves shoved up his forearms and out of the way.

“What were you thinking of,” he says to Francis, part remonstration and part question, holding the knob between thumb and forefinger. “You must have been beside yourself with want. How did you do it, I wonder? Did you lie on your back like this?”

Francis grunts. 

“Or did you bend yourself over straightaway? Had you some oil on your fingers?”

“Wool grease.”

“Ah. At least you had some measure of sense.”

Why he feels the need to needle Francis so he cannot say. He feels like a master correcting a wayward apprentice, though Francis is older than he and may be twice as experienced. But were he, James thinks, they would not be here, and indeed there is a certain innocence to Francis, to his responsiveness, to the way he gasps and writhes. Francis resists his pleasure the way James tried to dam up his laughter earlier, and James cannot witness it without wanting to chip away at the dike, to see it crumble and break. He and Francis are not bosom friends but James does know him, and the fastest way to rile him is with well-aimed repartee.

“And was there some _one_ you imagined?” He draws the knob half out, so it stretches Francis at its greatest width. “Who did you think of, Francis?” When he slides it back in James is careful to angle his wrist just right, so that Francis cries out and scrabbles his bare heels against his mattress. “Whose cock, whose fingers?” He does not entertain the possibility of Miss Cracroft, even in the privacy of his own mind. 

“You are an unrepentant vulgarian,” Francis says through gritted teeth. “I might have known.”

“I think you did. I think that is why you asked me here. You might have made up some story for Jopson, might even have called for Goodsir. You knew he would attend you. You knew he would be discreet. You knew this and you sent for me anyway.”

“I told you—”

“Yes, yes, your prattle about respect. But this is not so much worse than your illness. All men have their vices. And perhaps you decided that this was one of mine, and so I could not be scandalized. Perhaps you even thought to hold it over me. Collateral for keeping your secret.”

He has continued to rock the glass knob into Francis, removing it nearly entirely before driving it home again and again. Francis’s cock has begun to leak ahead of spending, and his whole body is covered over with a roseate flush. But when Francis gasps it is not in pleasure, and when he sits up on his elbows to look down at James between his thighs his expression is strained with dismay.

“I would never,” he says.

The sincerity catches James about the throat. He chews his bottom lip, the inside of his cheek. Encouraging blood. “Even so, you knew.”

“I do now,” Francis says.

James curses, and takes hold of Francis’s cock at last, running his thumb over the head, tugging at the foreskin. He would put his mouth on Francis if he could stand not to talk, but speech feels like his only weapon, that and his hands, which he makes merciless, makes devilish.

“You will not do this again,” he says, as Francis arches into his fist. “The next time you find yourself at the mercy of your appetites, you will call upon me first.”

“James—”

“But do not think I will be content to bugger you so indirectly.”

Here he withdraws the knob near fully, plunges it as deep within as he can manage without losing his grip, as though he is planning to plug Francis up again and leave him here. Francis cries out; he has extended his hands, and one flexes aimlessly on his stomach while the other is wrapped loosely around James’s wrist as though he wants to feel the roll of bone and tendon as James works him over.

“What will you do?” Francis asks. He has not lain flat again but watches James down the length of his body. His mouth is open, his eyes heavy-lidded. His hair a pale scrim, whipped about on his head like spume.

“I shall take you in hand and I shall fill you up, Francis.”

“Christ,” gasps Francis, clasping now at James’s arm, reaching for him with both hands. “By Christ, come here and do it.”

James finds himself hauled bodily over Francis, still quite clothed. He looses his flies with frantic hands. His cock is still damnably soft, but he fumbles it out anyway, slides the knob from Francis with anticlimactic ease, slicked as it is with James’s spit and the remnants of Francis’s lanolin. With bated breath he presses his cock to the welcoming hole the thing has left behind. He twitches once or twice. He bucks against Francis’s body as though to trick himself inside, but it is no use. James’s cock is wholly uncooperative, and for the first time in a long time he cares enough to regret it.

_Damn, damn,_ he says to himself. Francis gives a bereft cry.

“See here,” James spits, infuriated. He wets two fingers in his mouth with haste and shoves them into Francis, into the grasping heat of him, and with his free hand cradles Francis’s skull, white-knuckled in Francis’s hair. They are face to face. Francis gapes at him like a fish.

“See here,” James says again. “I’ll fuck you until you feel me in your teeth, until you cannot bear it.”

He holds Francis down and sets a punishing rhythm, reaching and reaching to the core of him, incensed by Francis’s body, by his own infirmities, by the ever-present taste of iron. _No matter,_ he thinks of the blood. _The days go on apace. You are here together now. Aim true, James, and you shall break him apart._

Francis surges up as though to kiss him. He misses, though, or thinks better of it, and leaves off with his face buried in James’s neck, hands on James’s hips, grinding their bodies together as he spends against James’s stomach. They fall together in the berth. James’s own pleasure has been diffuse, non-urgent, yet there is still a sense of satisfaction, the feeling of a job well done. It is here in the mess smeared across James’s waistcoat, in Francis’s reedy breathing. After a few minutes’ silence Francis stirs, moving out from under James. James rolls onto his side, and they lie facing one another, looking nowhere. When they speak again it is a tangle of words. 

“James--” 

“Well--” 

“Should I--” 

James’s cock is still free of his trousers, and Francis feels for it, takes it in hand. To have him look at it this way, limp and useless, makes James want to hide his face, and he turns into the soft cave of Francis’s pillow, which smells of Francis and which makes things worse. He is sure his cock looks ridiculous in Francis’s hand, like the plucked neck of a chicken. Any residual humiliation Francis feels will surely be superseded by the sight.

“Won’t work,” James says with some despair. “No point in flopping it about so.” 

“I would try,” Francis says. “But only if you wish it.” 

James’s cock twitches again in the cage of Francis’s fingers, but no more. He shrugs away and covers himself. “Perhaps in happier times.” He knows he sounds rueful. 

Francis barks a wry laugh. “Aye,” he says. “I’ll owe you.” He sounds as though James has lent him the coin for a pint, or a plate of kidney pie, and also as though he knows he will not likely have occasion to repay him. He sits up, combs a hand back through his ragged hair. He looks around the berth as though seeing it anew. 

“You ought to--” 

“Yes,” James says. “I’ll go.” 

Francis turns from his contemplation of the berth to consider him. “But you can’t go out like that. You look awful.” 

James ignores the incipient flare of self-consciousness. “I thought you trusted Jopson without reservation,” James says. “And I’ll be in my slops.” 

“Jopson isn’t the point,” Francis says. “You’ve your own standard to uphold. Shouldn’t have set it so damned high in the first place. How will they take it if you let yourself go now?”

James snorts. “Set me to rights then, Francis. I shall not leave until I pass muster with my first.” 

“Hmph. As it should be.” 

Francis stands and locates his trousers. He retrieves a cloth and returns to daub at James’s waistcoat, which will still give Bridgens fits, though perhaps counter-weighed by lack of blood. He arranges James’s jacket, fiddles with his buttons and the fold and drape of the fabric. Once satisfied here Francis looks into James’s face. He lifts a hand as though he means to finger-comb James’s hair. He pauses, though, hovering, eyes trained on James’s hairline for a moment before he drops his hand to pick halfheartedly at the curling ends where they fall at his collar. 

“What?” James asks. 

“Nothing,” Francis says gruffly. “You’ll forgive me if I’m not versed in ladies’ hair styles.” 

“Been sitting on that one, have you? No matter, I’ve left my curlers on _Erebus_ , anyway.” James tosses his hair in emphasis. He has long embraced his foppishness, a truth worn so proudly, so boldly that it appears to be another lie. “Am I decent, sir?” 

“You’re sufficient,” says Francis. He is sitting very close to James, his hands folded now in his lap, fingers knitted together. “You had the right of it before. I could have gone to Jopson, or to Goodsir. I shouldn’t have asked this of you. I suppose I did it out of pride. I suppose I thought there could be no loss of face where I had none to begin with. I am sorry.” 

James sighs. He pats the bed around him, moves the quilt about until he retrieves the glass knob, which he contemplates between thumb and forefinger. “Quite ornate, this,” he says. “Pity it’s been tucked away so long. You ought to clean it up and put it on a drawer somewhere, let it do what it was meant to.” 

“Leave it to rust and rot, you mean. We are in caskets, James. Great caskets.” 

“But we aren’t yet dead,” James says. “Give it to me, then. I shall stoke my hope for it on our walk.” 

Francis grimaces. “Do what you like. I never want to see the cursed thing again.”

He is looking, though. His gaze is trained on James’s hand, his expression despondent. The particular source of Francis’s hangdog demeanor makes no difference to James. He knows only that he cannot abide it. 

“Francis,” he says. “Look at me.” 

“You’d see more? Hard to believe you’ve not had your fill.” 

James ignores him. He wishes he could have managed a cockstand, if only to present Francis with some tangible evidence of his physical admiration, but this is beside the point. He leans closer, watching the downset crescent of Francis’s mouth.

“I should like it duly noted that my esteem for you was never lost,” James says. “Obscured, perhaps. Misplaced for a time. But never truly lost. Else it should not have come back to me so quickly, or so ardently.” 

“Ardently,” says Francis. 

And yes, in the word there is the sardonic twist of disbelief; without it, James has realized, its speaker would not be Francis. But the mouth that speaks the word has softened to a pink slip, and James finds that at the moment _esteem_ is not the sum total of what he feels for that mouth, despite all that has come out of it over their long years of belligerence. He understands somehow there is no further speech he can make that will sway Francis. Again he requires shorthand, and luckily this time his body cannot yet fail him. 

Kissing Francis is a matter of pitch and roll. James’s head falls forward, and though Francis does not meet him he does not move away, does not stop James from chasing the loll of his head to one side, from putting his hands on Francis’s face. Francis makes a noise of shock, as though all of this is unexpected, as though he wants to argue with James about whether or not it’s happening. When he draws away the flush has come into his face again. 

“You should return to _Erebus_ ,” Francis says. His eyes skate here and there over James, like a bird wary of landing. 

James’s hand has slipped to Francis’s neck. His thumb skims between warm, stubbled skin and the battered collar of his undershirt. “Now you send me away. You’re right, though. Lieutenant Le Vesconte must think I’ve been eaten up.” 

Francis covers James’s hand with his own. “I’ll send men back with you,” he says. 

“No need,” James says. “I am armed.” 

“Well,” says Francis. “I trust you will take care. Wouldn’t do to lose you, now I know of your ardent esteem.” 

“Francis--” 

“Shh. Make haste back to _Erebus_ , James. Make ready your ship for our departure and prepare to walk beside me out of here.” 

James rises. He dresses and takes up his rifle and goes out of the berth. He has no further farewell to bid Francis, and having been given his orders he does not linger. His lips burn as though they have been fixed to ice. On the walk between ships, James tastes blood and smiles.


End file.
